Sinha hints at
simple tax systemNEW
DELHI, Dec 30  The indirect and direct tax
structure could be further streamlined in the
Budget and the Government is determined to do
away with the regressive impact of the indirect
tax structure, Union Finance Minister Yashwant
Sinha said.

Tax arrears mount to
41,230 croreNEW DELHI,
Dec 30  Direct tax arrears mounted to Rs 41,230
crore in the 1997-98 fiscal, an increase of 22.7 per cent
over the previous year, according to the Comptroller and
Auditor General of India.

Stockbrokers during the last trading of the year
in Mumbai, on Thursday. The BSE closed early in
fears of the Y2K bug, as it has been predicted
that computers around the world are likely to go
down as the calendar changes from 1999 to 2000.
 AFP

Power, banking vulnerable
to Y2KNEW
DELHI, Dec 30  With less than 24 hours to
go for the millennium bug to hit, an Information
Technology research group said power, banking and
transport sector in India are likely to be hit by
the bug and could result in a revenue loss of
around $400 million.Computer glitches across the
world will be plentiful, the IDC report said.

Duty on sugar, edible oil
increasedNEW DELHI,
Dec 30  The Government today hiked the import duty
on sugar to 40 per cent and on refined edible oil to 25
per cent to check imports which were affecting domestic
producers and farmers.

Y2K
control roomsNEW
DELHI, Dec 30  The government has set up a
National Control Room for monitoring the eleven
Y2K critical sectors.

Recent hand-out shows a year 2000 contact lens,
available at an optician's shop in Austria for US
$ 130.

SBI holds seminar on NRIsCHANDIGARH,
Dec 30  SBI main branch here organised a seminar on
Non-Resident Indians in which 22 NRIs from the U.K., the
U.S.A., Germany, Japan and the Middle East participated.

CTV units record 25 pc growth NEW DELHI,
Dec 30  The Rs 5,000 crore Colour Television
industry again witnessed an year of over 25 per cent
growth in 1999 and is targeting financial year 1999-2000
sales of close to five million sets, mainly on the
strength of sustained technological upgradation coupled
with savvy marketing techniques and continuous price
reduction.

Ambala rail division earnings upCHANDIGARH,
Dec 30  The earnings of the Ambala Railway
Division, that caters to railway services in Chandigarh
also, have been Rs 412 crore for the first eight months
of this financial year.

Chandigarh's planet of fitnessCHANDIGARH,
Dec 30  With a high-tech gymnasium, a spa area for
body toning and relaxation and an aerobics studio, planet
fitness is offering a few customised packages in the new
year catering to different age groups and profiles.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 
The indirect and direct tax structure could be further
streamlined in the Budget, the Union Finance Minister, Mr
Yashwant Sinha, indicated here today.

 We must have
straight forward and simple taxation system that is
easily understandable, Mr Sinha said adding that
the process of tax reforms initiated in the last Budget
will be continued in the forthcoming Budget also.

The Finance Minister
said that the Government is determined to do away with
the regressive impact of the indirect tax structure.
 We should eschew populism, fiscal profligacy and
induct higher degree of fiscal discipline to take the
economy to a higher orbit of growth, he said while
speaking at the 94th Annual General Meeting of PHDCCI
here.

Direct tax reforms
carried out by successive governments, he noted, have
helped in better tax compliance, and said he was
confident that the country would get back to the high 11
to 12 per cent tax-GDP ratio in the coming years from the
current level of about 9 per cent.

Mr Sinha said that the
States will be involved as equal partners in second
generation economic reforms and indirect tax reforms
started last year will be carried forward in the coming
budget.

Admitting that fiscal
deficit was causing concern, Sinha said in the next 3-5
years the country must ensure fiscal discipline by
eschewing fiscal profligacy and cutting the flap on
expenditure.

Reaffirming the
commitment of the Government to bring about value added
tax (VAT) in 15 months from now, the Finance Minister
said that there is widespread appreciation amongst the
States to go for sales tax harmonisation.

Outgoing President of
PHDCCI, Mr Ashok Khanna said that the direct tax system
should be simple, transparent and linear with low tax
rate, but without fiscal concessions.

Mr Khanna said that in
order to pep-up the capital market, it is necessary to
lower the interest rates. This would motivate the people
to invest in capital market.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 (PTI)
 Direct tax arrears mounted to Rs 41,230 crore in
the 1997-98 fiscal, an increase of 22.7 per cent over the
previous year, according to the Comptroller and Auditor
General of India (CAG).In its recent report presented to
Parliament, the CAG also said despite the higher tax
collection of Rs 48,280.40 crore including Rs 9,554.25
crore from Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme
(VDIS-97), total tax collection declined by Rs 168.93
crore although there was an increase in the number of
assessees from 1.2 crore to 1.35 crore.

About arrears, it said,
the amount of tax which remained uncollected on March 31,
1998, was Rs 41,230.03 crore in the case of income tax
including corporation tax.

A major cause for
increase was demands kept in abeyance by courts,
tribunals and revenue appellate authorities, the report
added.

CAG said the uncollected
amount comprised arrear demand of Rs 25,703.80 crore of
earlier years which included Rs 1,444.05 crore relating
to a period over 5 years.

Collection from VDIS was
at the cost of normal growth in revenue collection, it
added.

Tax buoyancy, a key
indicator of efficiency of revenue mobilisation in
response to growth in GDP, was on an average greater than
one per cent over the last ten years, but turned negative
0.01 per cent in 1997-98, CAG said.

Analysis of tax buoyancy
with reference to GDP excluding the agricultural income,
the report said, showed progressive decline over
the last three years indicating poor mobilisation effort
in revenue generation.

CAG said that most of
the new assessees belonged to low income strata and as a
result there was a declining trend in the per capita
revenue collection during the last five years.

About 95 per cent
of the new assessees were among non-company assessees,
accounted for in the low income range up to Rs 2 lakh
while about 80 per cent in the case of corporate
assessees was in the range below Rs 5 lakh from low
income range, it said.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 (PTI)
 The Government today hiked the import duty on
sugar to 40 per cent and on refined edible oil to 25 per
cent to check imports which were affecting domestic
producers and farmers.

The import duty hike on
sugar is 12.5 per cent as it goes up from the present
27.5 per cent to 40 per cent. The duty hike in refined
edible oil is 10 per cent in addition to the 10 per cent
surcharge which makes the total increased hike 27.5 per
cent from the present 15 per cent, he said.

On sugar, Shanta Kumar
said the levy obligation has been brought down to 30 per
cent from the current 40 per cent as per recommendation
of the Mahajan Committee report.

The Government also
dispensed with discretionary quota for free sale sugar
from January 1 next to do away with ad hoc release of
additional quantities over and above the monthly release
to individual sugar mills, he said.

Hereafter, monthly
release of sugar to mills will be on pro-rata basis, he
added.

With a view to bringing
imported sugar on par with domestically produced sugar,
the Government has issued fresh notification directing
importers not to sell without getting permission in
writing.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 (PTI)
 The Rs 5,000 crore Colour Television industry
again witnessed an year of over 25 per cent growth in
1999 and is targeting financial year 1999-2000 sales of
close to five million sets, mainly on the strength of
sustained technological upgradation coupled with savvy
marketing techniques and continuous price reduction.

In what is being seen as
the most remarkable trend of the colour television market
in 1999, three Chinese brands  Konka, TCL and Hayer
 made their Indian debut but are struggling to take
on the by now firmly entrenched Korean as well as
Japanese majors besides domestic firms BPL and Videocon.

The worlds
largest television market in China collapsed some time
back due to huge capacity build-up and manufacturers
overnight dropped prices by as much as 25 per cent,
a colour television dealer said.

After the situation
turned desperate in China, all eyes turned towards the
rapidly expanding Indian CTV market and players like
Konka and TCL decided to literally dump their sets in
India at throwaway prices, industry sources said.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 
With less than 24 hours to go for the millennium bug
(Y2K) to hit, an Information Technology research group
said power, banking and transport sector in India are
likely to be hit by the bug and could result in a revenue
loss of around $400 million dollars.

There may be power
blackouts or banking glitches as the country rolls over
into the new millennium, said Mr Pradeep Gupta,
Managing Director of International Data Corporation
(India).

Though India as a whole
spent about $100 million in repairing the Y2K bug related
problems in 1999, the country might get minor
bruises by suffering a 0.2 per cent of GDP or $400
million revenue loss, he said.

The impact of the Y2K
bug in India will not be as severe as made out to
be...only 0.2 per cent loss in revenue due to cascading
effect caused by the Y2K bug. But there might be power
blackouts and banking glitches, Mr Gupta said.

Addressing a press
conference on IDCs Megellan project,he said India
is only a notch worse than the U.S.A. and would keep
company of Ireland, Norway, Poland, Malaysia and
Philippines while suffering the loss due to Y2K.

Computer glitches across
the world will be plentiful but major infrastructure
outrages would not occur, the IDC report said.

The report has concluded
that the world has spent about $280 billion in fixing the
problem and on an average may lose about 0.02 per cent of
the global economy due to the bug.

In general, the more
automated countries have also spent more to fix the
problem, the most vulnerable have lots of old software,
less dependence on automation and smaller economies.

The IDC has also
concluded that the most prepared

industries (finance,
insurance) are also the most vulnerable to imported bugs.

The IT research group,
to give real time information on how the world is facing
the Y2K bug would update the events as they happen at its
site www.idc.com/magellan, he added.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 
The government has set up a National Control Room (NCR)
and sectoral control room for monitoring the eleven Y2K
critical sectors during the transition to the new
millennium.

Control rooms have also
been set up at the state level to monitor the problem and
all control rooms, which became functional from December
28, would remain operational till January 3, 2000, an
official release said here today.

The 11 sectors
identified as Y2K critical include atomic energy,
banking, civil aviation, defence, insurance, power,
petroleum, ports, railways, space and telecommunications.
The NCR would provide information at regular intervals
about the state of transition in these 11 sectors from
December 31 mid-night, the release added.

NEW DELHI, Dec 30 (PTI)
 Plastic money leaders in India, Mastercards, today
said all its operations were Y2K compliant and
customers fears on this score were
unfounded.

The assurance came in
the wake of apprehensions following difficulties
experienced by thousands of small retailers to process
the credit cards in the Western world on Tuesday after
the millennium bug hit a payment system used by global
banking giant HSBC holdings.

Mastercards
Vice-President and Country Manager for South Asia Sameer
Vakil told PTI that the multinational company started its
Y2K preparations right in 1994 and that their entire
system and all local and international operations are
well tested and Y2K compliant.

CHANDIGARH, Dec 30
 The earnings of the Ambala Railway Division, that
caters to railway services in Chandigarh also, have been
Rs 412 crore for the first eight months of this financial
year. This is almost Rs 99 crore more than that during
the same period between April and November last year.

Meanwhile, the
expenditure of the division has gone down from 58 per
cent last year to 42 per cent this year, the Divisional
Railway Manager (DRM), Ambala Division, Mr Vijay Kumar,
said today. The earnings are calculated on the basis of
passengers' ticketing and freight movement.

About opening a second
entry to the Chandigarh railway station, he said the
project deadline had been extended from December to
February as the foot bridge connecting the railway
station from the other side is yet to come up.

Discussing the issue of
how fog in the plains of Haryana and Punjab has been
delaying long-distance trains, he said there is no
economically viable solution. The cost of such
requirements run into several thousand crores and this is
certainly not suggested for country like ours.

CHANDIGARH, Dec 30
 With a high-tech gymnasium, a spa area for body
toning and relaxation, steam bath, sauna, naturopathy,
jacuzzi, physiotherapy massages and the only fitness
centre in town with an aerobics studio that has air
cushion flooring that ensures safety from stress
injuries, planet fitness is offering a few customised
packages in the new year catering to different age groups
and profiles.

Ms Kiran Chadha, the
person behind this project, said she has been inspired by
fitness studies overseas.

Spread over three
floors, the gym has international quality equipment,
technical expertise and trained manpower. Aerobics
sessions are popular, according to a press note issued
here today.

Gold schemeLUDHIANA,
Dec 30 (TNS)  SBI Civil Lines branch here launched
the SBI Gold Deposit scheme yesterday. Mr OP Bhardwaj,
Deputy General Manager, Ludhiana said this was the first
branch in this zone to launch the scheme. On the first
day, about four kg of gold was deposited.

GAILCHANDIGARH,
Dec 30 (TNS)  For the fourth successive year, Gas
Authority of India Limited, (GAIL) New Delhi, has bagged
the first prize under the Indira Gandhi Rajbhasha Award
Scheme.